


You were, after all, staring

by aurumstar (shieldivarius)



Series: FFXIVWrite 2020 [7]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Female Azem, Flirting, Fluff, Multi, Patch 5.3: Reflections in Crystal Spoilers, Pre-Convocation, Pre-Relationship, Prompt Fill, Tumblr: FFXIVwrite, Tumblr: FFXIVwrite2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:27:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26655157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shieldivarius/pseuds/aurumstar
Summary: “You’re staring.”Hades jumped and the real world snapped back into place, his soul sight falling away. “I am notstaring.”His companion laughed softly, indifferent to the sharpness to Hades’s voice, the bristling of his posture. “Have you ever considered,” he began, his voice taking on a philosophical tone, “that our gift is very nearly obscene?”In their days at the Akadaemia, long before the end of the world, Hades and Hythlodaeus meet a woman whose reputation for trouble already precedes her.Fill for the FFXIVwrite 2020 prompt "wish."
Relationships: Azem/Solus zos Galvus | Emet-Selch/Hythlodaeus
Series: FFXIVWrite 2020 [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1916263
Kudos: 23
Collections: #FFxivWrite2020 Final Fantasy 30 Day Writing Challenge





	You were, after all, staring

Her soul sparkled. Amber ringed in gold, an aurum jewel that outshone the purples, greens and blues of her compeers and the hangers-on that held court at the table around her. He thought he could even pick out her aether imbuing the room, dancing around her as she laughed, loud and carefree; a level of power that far outstripped most of the others sitting around her. If he dared get close enough to—

“You’re staring.”

Hades jumped and the real world snapped back into place, his soul sight falling away. “I am not _staring_.” 

His companion laughed softly, indifferent to the sharpness to Hades’s voice, the bristling of his posture. “Have you ever considered,” he began, his voice taking on a philosophical tone, “that our gift is very nearly obscene?”

“Only every time you bring it up,” Hades groused. But Hythlodaeus wasn’t finished, and continued his rumination as though he hadn’t said anything at all.

“Think. Most of us never have the privilege of seeing any but a few citizens over a certain age without mask and robe. But our gift? Our gift allows us to glimpse the individuality of anyone we should wish”—he snapped his fingers for emphasis—“in an instant.”

Behind his mask, Hades rolled his eyes. “I do listen to Sophist Eudaimon.”

Hyth leaned in and lowered his voice, as though he could have possibly been heard by the laughing woman across the room anyway. “But where matters of the heart, or,” he gestured vaguely toward the underside of the table, “ _other parts_ are concerned, I suppose it is only fitting that the Sophist’s words depart your head altogether. Since you certainly aren’t thinking with it.”

His face starting to burn red under his cowl and mask, Hades turned his attention to the ceiling, where the aether of new warding pulsed through, not quite firmly set into the stone of the walls yet. “Have you observed the new wing on the phantomology department?” 

Hythlodaeus tipped his head back enough to suggest he’d glanced up at the wards obligingly. Then he stood. “Very well. I will learn the aurum lady’s name for you.”

“So you looked, too.”

“Her soul really is quite brilliant.” Not a hint of embarrassment for his lecture, the hypocrite, and no apprehension in his step as he crossed the room and inserted himself in the conversation at the far table.

Hades watched with narrowed eyes, and kept a firm hold on his soul sight to stop from trying to read the conversation—Hythlodaeus leaning down, the object of his interest looking up with rapt attention—anymore deeply than body language allowed.

She touched Hyth’s arm, and then he was back, sliding into his chair with a satisfied air around him.

Hades looked at him expectantly. 

“Her name is Moirae, she—”

Hades swayed, and very nearly fell out of his chair in his haste to look back at the woman.

“ _That_ is Moirae? The upperclassman? The student who has _infamously_ nearly been expelled from the Akadaemia thrice for aiding in reckless, unsupervised concept trials?”

Hythlodaeus shrugged, but gestured for Hades to keep his voice down. “I certainly did not take the time to discuss her disciplinary record.”

“She is the _reason_ for the new warding on phantomology, if rumours can be taken to be true.”

“Excellent. I have dinner with her a week from now. We’ll have to discuss how she managed.”

“She—” Her power level certainly made a lot of sense now, though a reckless personality tied to that much aether was a truly frightening prospect. “No. My objections will encourage you. _Dinner?_ ”

A self-satisfied bit of aether ebbed from Hythlodaeus. “Yes, that’s what I said. You’ll be coming as well, of course. I promised her a three-way date.”

Hades stared at him. 

“Yes, Hades? Something to say to me?”

“Do not spend dinner asking her how she broke the wards on the old phantomology wing.”

“Perish the thought.” Hythlodaeus grinned under his mask, and Hades groaned.

Across the room, Moirae and her gaggle of enablers—surely one of them could tell her no, as he did Hythlodaeus?—rose. Hades gave in and allowed his sight to show him the beam of her soul again.

 _Beautiful._

“You’re staring again.”

Her glow moved toward their table and he blinked away his second sight in time for her hand to trail across his shoulders. He shivered, feeling her aether briefly touch his in polite introduction and looked a question up at her as she did the same to Hythlodaeus.

She smiled. “Hades, yes?” She held out her hand to him, and he grasped it briefly. “Moirae.”

“A pleasure.”

“He means that,” Hyth cut in. “His disinterested voice is part of his charm. My solemn vow.”

She laughed, soft and bubbly, and smiled between the two of them. “I look forward to seeing what sort of interest Hythlodaeus and I can draw from you, Hades.” Her tone left no question to what she meant.

He cleared his throat. “It will be a challenge.”

Hyth snorted, the traitor. 

“I do so love a challenge,” she murmured, leaning in so close he could almost make out the colour of her eyes through the holes of her mask. Heat pulsed through him. “I hope you live up to it now that you’ve made it.” Her friends were waiting by the door to the dining hall, and she glanced over her shoulder and waved at them to wait before turning back. 

Her aether trailed across him, and he grunted, meeting it with his own. She coiled hers around his offering, stretched it outward to tug at Hythlodaeus’s too, playing with them even though she was already halfway across the room, and staying with them once she was out the door.

“What have you done, my friend?” he asked, once their aether had returned to normal and Moirae’s finally dissipated. The dining room still bustled around them, but it was barely more than a buzzing in his ears. He was glad for his robes, even as he tried to think of one of Sophist Eudaimon’s lectures to try and forget the heat that she’d made rush through him. 

“Only what you wished, Hades. You were, after all, staring.”

**Author's Note:**

> wish; n. a desire or hope for something to happen.
> 
> I have in mind a sprawling pre-convocation/during their akadaemia days fic that I really want to write for these three but the _time commitment_. 
> 
> But this was a taste!


End file.
